Jump out of here

Doug Liman knows action. Unfortunately, that is all the good that can be said for his newest film “Jumper.”
Hayden Christensen stars as David, a rich, handsome young man living in New York. The way he became rich, however, is the catch: As he discovered at age 15, he can teleport, and has been doing so since adolescence in order to rob banks. Unfortunately for him, a team of agents called Paladins, led by Samuel L. Jackson, whose sole purpose is killing “jumpers,” is in hot pursuit. Jackson (and his hair) may be the saving grace of “Jumper,” carrying with him his “Snakes on a Plane”-esque mystique every step of the way.
He and his high-school crush Millie (Rachel Bilson) escape to Rome, where David meets another “jumper,” Griffin (Jamie Bell, “Billy Elliot”), and the three of them must jump their way across the world in order to stay safe.
The problem with casting extremely attractive and well-known actors is that sometimes they aren’t very good at, well, acting. Christensen seems to always embody this on screen. His lines, even if well-written, invariably seem shallow and empty. His interactions with Millie mirror the exaggerated, horrific scenes with Natalie Portman in the “Star Wars” prequels.
Oddly, the actors playing David and Millie in high school, Max Thieriot and AnnaSophia Robb, deserve recognition for their talents on-screen, frankly putting their adult counterparts to shame.
The plot, riddled with gaping holes, follows in the pattern of Christensen’s flat acting. It only allows the tiniest bit of constructive dialogue for every half hour of pure action. The action itself fails to entice, and the “jumping” even lost its intrigue after the first few times it happens, which explains the extremely promising trailer and inevitable letdown of a full-length film. Many attribute the mediocrity of the film, however, to the prospect of a sequel, which “Jumper” sets up.
Ultimately, many audiences who find themselves seeing “Jumper” will end up wishing 30 minutes in that they could “jump” out of the theater.